Reflections of the "Game of School"
David Zoglio
EDC 503
As a teacher I know the game of school all too well. The author does a good job explaining that the game is played by not only students, but teachers, administrators, and parents as well. Examples are clearly stated on the opening pages. Through personal experience I have seen all of these examples in practice and have been an active game player on many occasions. I have covered topics and not asked if it made sense, I have worked with administrators that are more interested you have the day’s objectives posted rather than understanding the class dynamic and parents who want their children to obtain high grades without attention paid to the personal responsibility the child must take into the classroom.
At some point in American Education learning has become secondary to getting a good grade and the “better” the school (by established standards) the more the game is played.
It is evident even in college where students feed the professor what they want to here. As an adult I took a course in biotechnology, I was very interested in the class and learned a great deal. It was a large class and I noticed the undergrads in the class would miss most of the classes and simply turn in the papers and show up on test days. I am sure they all passed, but did they learn anything about the topic, experience the passion of the professor and guest speakers who were world class professionals in the field, I have no proof, but from my experience I would feel confident the knowledge of the topic is minimal.
In my district a new curriculum was rolled out and every student in every school was expected to be on the same page on the same day. Teachers were expected to have the curriculum binder open to the assigned topic of the day, and the central office administrators would visit unannounced and question if you were doing something in class that was not in the curriculum or out of sequence.
This short lived experiment was the game played at its highest level, experienced game players were cited as role models. Any educational creativity and freedom was taken out of the equation
The author states on page 100 “Whenever and wherever the game prospers, passionate teaching subsides and intense and purposeful teaching diminishes”. This statement is spot on and is evident everywhere to some extent but in low performing schools, where passionate teaching can make a great deal of difference in a child’s life it unfortunately is the norm.
I was a member of a New England Association of Schools and Colleges Commission on Public Schools (NEASC) visiting committee during the 2011/2012 school. While it is very valuable for a school to go through a self reflection and make recommendations on improvement, it appeared to me that those who scored the best were simply following the prescribed rubrics, playing the game. In our closed meetings we had many heated discussions on the extent of rule following verses authentic education. Many times the two did not mesh and I always took the side of what I felt was authentic which was not always in a neat package or meet some established standard. An example was a social science class doing a gardening project while the justification was not neat and clean it was evident that a connection between curriculum and practice was taking place but was very difficult for some of the members to grasp.
The author on page 101 lists examples of learning from the past that does not obey the rules of the game. The question is how we can change. While standards are important, a high school biology class, no matter where it is taught, should have commonalities of content. What is missing is the fact that a qualified teacher can adapt the content to the students in front of him at that given time of the day an school year, Period 1 may be excited be the history of the subject, how have we progressed this far, period 2 may be more excited to get involved in more hands on learning. Period 3 may want a balance of two, ECT. A professional educator will know his or her subject and his or her students and use their creativity to move their students forward\. This is a tall order but is must be changed or schools will morph into the virtual world where The University of Phoenix will be the new Harvard.
David Zoglio
EDC 503
As a teacher I know the game of school all too well. The author does a good job explaining that the game is played by not only students, but teachers, administrators, and parents as well. Examples are clearly stated on the opening pages. Through personal experience I have seen all of these examples in practice and have been an active game player on many occasions. I have covered topics and not asked if it made sense, I have worked with administrators that are more interested you have the day’s objectives posted rather than understanding the class dynamic and parents who want their children to obtain high grades without attention paid to the personal responsibility the child must take into the classroom.
At some point in American Education learning has become secondary to getting a good grade and the “better” the school (by established standards) the more the game is played.
It is evident even in college where students feed the professor what they want to here. As an adult I took a course in biotechnology, I was very interested in the class and learned a great deal. It was a large class and I noticed the undergrads in the class would miss most of the classes and simply turn in the papers and show up on test days. I am sure they all passed, but did they learn anything about the topic, experience the passion of the professor and guest speakers who were world class professionals in the field, I have no proof, but from my experience I would feel confident the knowledge of the topic is minimal.
In my district a new curriculum was rolled out and every student in every school was expected to be on the same page on the same day. Teachers were expected to have the curriculum binder open to the assigned topic of the day, and the central office administrators would visit unannounced and question if you were doing something in class that was not in the curriculum or out of sequence.
This short lived experiment was the game played at its highest level, experienced game players were cited as role models. Any educational creativity and freedom was taken out of the equation
The author states on page 100 “Whenever and wherever the game prospers, passionate teaching subsides and intense and purposeful teaching diminishes”. This statement is spot on and is evident everywhere to some extent but in low performing schools, where passionate teaching can make a great deal of difference in a child’s life it unfortunately is the norm.
I was a member of a New England Association of Schools and Colleges Commission on Public Schools (NEASC) visiting committee during the 2011/2012 school. While it is very valuable for a school to go through a self reflection and make recommendations on improvement, it appeared to me that those who scored the best were simply following the prescribed rubrics, playing the game. In our closed meetings we had many heated discussions on the extent of rule following verses authentic education. Many times the two did not mesh and I always took the side of what I felt was authentic which was not always in a neat package or meet some established standard. An example was a social science class doing a gardening project while the justification was not neat and clean it was evident that a connection between curriculum and practice was taking place but was very difficult for some of the members to grasp.
The author on page 101 lists examples of learning from the past that does not obey the rules of the game. The question is how we can change. While standards are important, a high school biology class, no matter where it is taught, should have commonalities of content. What is missing is the fact that a qualified teacher can adapt the content to the students in front of him at that given time of the day an school year, Period 1 may be excited be the history of the subject, how have we progressed this far, period 2 may be more excited to get involved in more hands on learning. Period 3 may want a balance of two, ECT. A professional educator will know his or her subject and his or her students and use their creativity to move their students forward\. This is a tall order but is must be changed or schools will morph into the virtual world where The University of Phoenix will be the new Harvard.